September
Harvest Moon
Its light lengthened the day to bring in the last of the harvest.
Also called
Corn Moon · Barley Moon
Origin of the name
The only moon named after the sky rather than the land: the harvest moon is, by definition, the full moon nearest the autumn equinox — most often September’s. Every farming tradition of the northern hemisphere knows it: barley moon, corn moon, moon of the grape harvest.
The story goes…
It was said that around the equinox, the angle the moon’s path makes with the horizon flattens: for several evenings running, the moon rises at almost the same hour, just after sunset. And the harvesters, before machines, finished their fields by its light. The name tells an astronomer’s truth as much as a farmer’s.
The almanac’s word
Around the equinox, the moon rises barely twenty minutes later from one evening to the next, against fifty on average: that is the real secret of the harvest moon.